1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure is related to the field of load sensing in lifts. In particular, it is for the positioning of a load sensor in the castor base of an adjustable hospital bed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within a hospital, the bed is ubiquitous. It is generally the most major piece of furniture in every hospital room and is the one primarily utilized by the patient. The reasons are clear. Patients in hospital often need to be transported by others, and often need to be transported when they are under the effects or anesthesia, asleep, or otherwise incapacitated.
Hospital beds are, therefore, often required to have much more functionality than traditional beds. They generally need to be on wheels to be easily moveable within the hospital. They also commonly need to be adjustable in a variety of different directions to allow patients that are unable to move themselves, and often lack even basic motor control, to be moved by others from and to the bed safely and to allow patients that may be awake and at least partially mobile to be comfortable in them both sleeping and performing other activities such as eating.
One element of interest for patients that are in the hospital is their weight (body mass). This can be relevant to determine the amount of certain medications they should be provided with, for other forms of treatment, and for general monitoring. However, when patients cannot stand or sit, they generally cannot utilize traditional scales which require them to position and hold their body on the sensing mechanism. Therefore, it is desirable to have weight sensing mechanisms which can be used by a patient that is unconscious and ideally can be used without them having to be moved any additional times. Traditionally, hospitals have utilized scales which are capable of having a bed or wheelchair rolled onto them for this purpose. However, this means that the patient has to be transported from the room to the scale and the scales may become a chokepoint in hospital procedures if they are needed by a large number of patients at the same time. These systems can also introduce errors if the mass of the bed, wheelchair, and any other ancillary objects thereon are not taken into account in the mass calculation. This can result in an inflated weight calculations which in turn may result in overmedication or other problems.